Let me first say that I am a big fan of Fred Hutch. Both of my parents had cancer treatments at the Hutch and/or Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Data from my dad’s care was used in ongoing Hutch research. Additionally, I was on the Hutch Award luncheon committee for a few years and have been attending the luncheon for close to 15 years.

This year I came away from the Hutch Award luncheon very disappointed, however. As you can see from the picture below they have a mystery baseball box at every table. This is a great fundraiser as part of the lunch each year. The list of players to promote bidding on the auction is a list of past Hutch Award winners or the guest speaker from the auction. That is a high bar. Many years, like this year, with Jim Rice, you have a member of baseball the Hall of Fame as the guest speaker. The award winner generally has played for years, been to an All-Star game, played in the playoffs, etc. As you can see in the box I bid on was a Jesús Montero signed ball. Jesús is neither an award winner nor a guest speaker. Currently Jesús is playing for the Toronto Blue Jays AAA team or rather will be playing for that team once he serves a 50 game suspension for using an illegal substance at the end of the 2016 season. I am sure it was in the mystery box as a donation from the Mariners. Maybe the Hutch should have said thanks but no thanks? After getting a September call up for the Yankees in 2011 he played with the Mariners from 2012-15 but spent much of his time in the minors while with the M’s. Failing to make the squad in 2016 the Blue Jays picked him up off of waivers and he played all of 2016 in AAA for the Jays.

This picture show the promotion of the centerpiece. Also inside the box lid which show the contents of the box.

Maybe there should be some appeal of an ex-Mariner signed ball? I guess I am really disappointed that the list promoting what could be in the box was at a much higher caliber of player. I think next year before I bid I might just open the box first. The other perks inside the box are great but a Montero signed ball is far from being centerpiece worthy!

Update/side note:

I went to the Mariners fan fest a few days after the Hutch Award Luncheon and saw these prices at the Mariners garage sale booth. On ebay I saw you could by his ball for as low as $9.95. Not that price is any indication of the value.

As I started to think about what teams made the playoffs this year I started to think about players that had played for the Mariners this season and now were on playoff teams. As I looked at all of the trades the Mariners had made all but one were to teams in the playoffs. Do you remember what the Mariners got in return? Here are the trades the Mariners made to teams in the playoffs this year and what they got in return which in many cases is still to be determined.

I guess I would be classified as a Windows fan boy having worked at Microsoft for over 2o years but now a bit removed from the company I am more and more frustrated by Microsoft’s lack of ability to close the app gap in mobile. In fact many things that I found cool like Office on my Windows Phone are now supported on Android and iPhone. I am going to ignore games and focus on apps that I might use daily, weekly, or at least once a month that I find missing. Below is a table that I will try to keep updated when I see an app I would like to use but it is unavailable for Windows Phone. It started with a list that I put together in about 15 minutes and I am sure I will remember many other apps soon that I am disappointed have not been available for Windows Phone. Maybe Windows 10 will change things with universal apps and the claim of a compiler that will help you port your iOS and Android apps to Windows 10 but those seem like they are far from free recompiles or will suffer from emulation issues if that is how it is implemented. I know I am not alone with these complaints as a quick search will find multiple articles that lament the lack of “popular” apps on Windows Phone.

If you have ones that you would like to see please add them in the comments.

With my busy schedule I was able to schedule in these films in the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival. There were many films I wanted to see but they did not fit into my schedule. If you are going to one of these please let me know and maybe we can sit together or at least chat in line.

I am way behind this year on deciding what movies I might see in the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) let alone buying tickets but here is the list I think I am going to go with. As always there are conflicts with Mariners and Sounders FC games that mean there are movies I want to see that I cannot. This year I did pick a few mainstream movies that will clearly have big releases but I do get to see them a bit earlier than most.

These links point to the SIFF site. When I add the movies to the list of films I have seen I will link to IMDB.

With all of the talk about moving in the fences at Safeco Field, something that I am opposed to, I went out to look for who are the players who hit home runs in Safeco Field. I assumed outside of the Mariner players it would be players in the American League West because they have the most opportunities. I wish I had stats around at bats in for each hitter in Safeco but the site I used, Home Run Tracker just lists who hit the home run and also has true distance, speed off of bat, elevation & horizontal angle, and video for most hits. You also get mapped location in the park. The data only goes back to 2006 but I stopped a bit earlier than that. I let you look for yourself who has hit home runs over time in Safeco. What I was surprised to see was that Justin Smoak is the leader since 2010 and 4th on the list since 2009. It should be pointed out that he has only been with the team since the end of 2010 (only 30 games played that year). Second he has recently said that it is extremely hard to hit home runs in Safeco.

Released as a companion to the Once Upon a Time TV show this is a collection of the Brothers Grimm fairy tails. Each was only a few pages long and it an interesting read on stories that you might only know the Disney versions of.

First of the three books about a Jedi hiding in the underworld of Coruscant (Imperial Center) shortly after Star Wars Episode III. A droid with uninhibited AI and an alien news reporter search for the Jedi at the same time Vader is looking for him. I was almost all the way through the book when I realized I had read it before.

The crew from the first book in the series is tasked with helping get a rebel off of Coruscant only to find that the person they are tasked to help as been murdered. They then need to find the murder. Additionally, a Force skilled bounty hunter is tasked by Vader to try and kill the Jedi from their crew.

A few years ago I got this great card from a friend in Japan and I did not know who the artist was. It turns out it was Mary Blair who was a big part of Disneyland and Walt Disney’s life. I later learn that she of course designed the it’s a small world attraction and characters and was part of the group that Walt took to South America. There is lots of good info about Mary in the Disney family museum in San Francisco. Long story short, her artwork was on display at Disneyland on my last visit and I snapped the following shots on my way out of the part one night after the fireworks. In retrospect I could have done a much better job framing the pictures to give you a perspective of the size and many of the wall hangings were very large. I also should have zoomed in so you could see more of the text for many of the images. Anyway I hope y’all will enjoy if you cannot make it there to see the exhibit yourself.